Former Newcastle United manager Steve Bruce has hit back at Hibs striker Dwight Gayle following perceived criticism on the Open Goal podcast.
Gayle, who scored the winning goal in the Boxing Day derby was interviewed by Si Ferry about his career.
When discussing his time at Newcastle United where he scored 34 goals in 122 appearances he accused Bruce of “chucking a few of the boys under the bus” in a game away to Manchester City by failing to offer tactical advice.
“He was OK,” Gayle told the Open Goal podcast. “I felt that he didn’t spend enough time working on a lot of things with us. Perhaps he was trying to go game by game rather than developing us as a team. I think we could’ve improved a lot of things.
“I remember some of the boys got chucked into the Man City shift. We had a three-game week and the gaffer chucked some of the boys under the bus in terms of who had to play Man City away.
“Me and Matt Ritchie were asking for tactical improvements for weeks, months. We came in at half-time and we were two or three down, and he was like, ‘boys, you keep asking for tactics, I don’t do tactics; just put your boots on and work hard’.
‘He didn’t really do much on the training pitch. But then, obviously, when the Saudi owners came in, he stuck his boots on and the whistle and was like, “If I’m going, then I’m going to run you into the ground,” or something like that.
‘So, we’re doing some running drills and he’s just running us and he’s blowing his whistle and it’s just, like, making it into a little bit of a joke and stuff. He’s like, “They’re over there watching you!”
Bruce, who managed 97 games for Newcastle from 2019 to 2021 was clearly annoyed when asked to respond and questioned Gayle’s performance for the Magpies during their FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Manchester City in 2020.
|During that game Gayle missed a huge opportunity against Pep Guardiola’s team.
‘Is that the legendary Dwight Gayle, who missed the chance in the quarter-final against Manchester City? Is that the same Dwight Gayle? Interesting,’ he told BBC Radio Lancashire.
‘I’ve been around the block a long, long time. I’ve only managed 1,050 games but according to Dwight, I don’t know what I’m doing.
‘I’ll let other people make their minds up who are a bit more established than Dwight ever was.’
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
